we are star-stuff
by Bag Of Badgers
Summary: Feliciano Vargas has always dreamed of being a star-maker like his grandfather. The new family on the floor below his may be his chance. GerIta. Contains off-screen character death and on-screen nyotalia; K plus for aforementioned character death and very mild violence. De-anon from the meme.
1. Chapter 1

Non-canonical names: Eudokia (Byzantine Empire), Helena (Ancient Greece), Khani (Assyria), Hamilcar (Carthage), Batnoam (Phoenicia), Carlino (Seborga), Ewald (Germania), Adelheid (Liechtenstein), Basch (Switzerland), Dieuwer (Frisia), Anneliese (fem!Austria), Lotte (Belgium), Timothy (Netherlands), Mikkel (Denmark), Heinrich (Saxony); also featuring human OCs Marce, Atilia, Thiphilnia, Renata, Gunderic, and Theoderic.

Full prompt: "_Italy, an artistic child who has always trouble with bullies, dreams of becoming a world-class wishing star maker like his grandpa Rome._

When Rome dies, Italy is left to struggle toward his dream without his guidance until a very interesting family moves in next door: Germania, another renowned wishing star maker, and his two sons, Germany and Prussia, who are his creations. Normal wishing stars are human shaped, though they don't possess the mental capacity to function like real people, which makes the sons unique. Italy persuades Germania to take him on as an apprentice and becomes close friends with Germany who protects Italy from bullies.

The day comes when Germany becomes a mature star and must leave Italy to reside in the sky with the rest of his kind. Germany hates being stuck in the sky, listening to the wishes of others but unable to grant his own to be with Italy… until Italy makes a wish that only Germany can grant: not to be afraid and alone anymore. Thus Germany is able to descend from the sky to live the rest of his life with his beloved Italy. Bring on the fluff!"

* * *

In the city of Saint Stanislav, near enough to the slow river of the same name that the cries of the dockworkers and clangs of the ship bells fill every hour, in a quarter not as choked with soot as some but where the glass is often blackened, there is a small tenement. It is just off Old Smithy, and the rain gutters and fire escapes have left streaks of rust down the walls, and there are watermarks on the ground floor, and a sign in the window in careful lettering reading "ROOMS TO RENT- ask for Braginsky". On the top story, four up from the peeling door, there is a tiny window, cleaner than most (which is an oddity between Sooty Bridge and Lord Nikolai Bridge), with incongruous red calico curtains, inexpertly sewn.

The occupant of the garret room with this window is Feliciano Vargas, who is nineteen years old and once had a family, two brothers and a grandfather. He'd had a family, but one by one they'd gone: Lovino to the army, leaving letters and eventually a commendation for having 'laid down his life bravely for his country', Carlino to the city of Housemartin, leaving one or two photographs and a paid ticket for a three-hundred-mile third-class train trip, and finally his Nonno, eyes failing and hands too clumsy to work on the stars, had never woken up one morning, leaving Feliciano seventeen and alone in Saint Stanislav, washing dishes, running shop errands, and living in a garret room rented out by Mr. Ivan Braginsky for honestly too much a month, looking at the stars.

Two years later, he is still in the same place. Before his Nonno had died, he had imagined being a great star-maker like Nonno, better than the ones he spoke of with disdain: Eudokia who was a pale imitation, Helena who lacked true refinement, and so did Khani and Hamilcar, and Batnoam's methods were outdated, and on and on… he had dreamed of it, watching the stars long after Lovino and Carlino were asleep, imagining his creations up above the cloud of the city. They would shine, and be as good as Nonno's or even better, and the wishes they would grant would be the kind that moved mountains and changed worlds.

From his little window, clean as it is, he can barely see the stars beyond the smoke of the factories. He does not have much time, anyhow, because most of his waking hours are spent hurrying back and forth from Carriedo's grocery delivering boxes of produce shipped down the river (they keep him awake at night, indirectly, the noise of the ships they came on through his thin walls, and Feliciano supposes that's rather funny except for the part where he can't sleep) and then washing dishes at the tiny restaurant Carriedo's sisters run.

Feliciano's grandfather had died at the unfortunate point in Feliciano's education where he knew enough to make a star, but not enough to make one well, or at cost; and the last of their money had gone to the funeral. Carlino hadn't even been able to show up.

Feliciano exists, however, through the biting winters and stifling summers, which are always worse alone, through the gang that chases him down the street because he is smaller and meek-looking, through fingers raw from soap and arms sore from lifting boxes, on the hope that somehow he will earn a little money, a little free time, a little space, just one chance to create stars that outshine the world.

And then one day, he is woken up in the gray of dawn by three—no, four—voices coming from the story below him.

One he recognizes as Braginsky's younger sister, and then there are three unfamiliar male ones: one deep and curt, one harsh and loud, and one deep and quiet. Feliciano slips out of his room and down the stairs, dark and narrow, to watch the three new voices move into the first rooms on the right.

The curt voice belongs to an old man with long white hair, the next to a younger one, seemingly roughly the age Lovino was when he died, with white hair and very pale skin, and the last to a taller, younger man with very straight posture.

Feliciano only catches a glimpse of them before he scurries back up the stairs in fear of Natalya.

When he goes out that morning, from the stifling indoor air to the only slightly less stifling heat of a Saint Stanislav summer, he passes the youngest of the three new men.

It's odd, but as he slips by this man, clutching his breakfast of bread and a tiny little butter, Feliciano seems to catch a glow in the corner of his eye, faint but there.

* * *

He spends most of the morning hurrying back and forth on bicycle and foot, dodging carriages and pedestrians, delivering boxes of peaches and figs to the houses on Kingsmarch, Alfred, the other shop-boy, would help out, but Feliciano knows he's spending most of his time trying to get the young foreign lady at the deli two doors down to notice him, so his deliveries all stay in the immediate area.

It's on his return from the fourth or so delivery—Williams household, Graze Street, one box of apricots and a pound of marionberries—that he notices he's being followed. He's on foot, it wasn't far enough to warrant the bicycle, and there're four of them following him.

The usual, Feliciano thinks bitterly, and quickens his pace.

He manages to reach the shop before any one of the four begins anything, and they loiter at the intersection with Chiswell outside the little church.

The rest of the day can't go by slowly enough.

Feliciano hurries down Old Smithy street when his shift is over and Berwald comes to replace him, old twilight heat weighing on his shoulders with the red-yellow light of sunset through coal-smoke, and the four follow him over Sooty Bridge and onwards, at a saunter, and Feliciano can't help looking back over his shoulder, and—

—they catch up to him and pull him into a doorway.

"W-what do you want?" Feliciano knows the answer, even though they don't say it out loud, and he can't keep the shake out of his voice because the four are all a head taller at least, and the fact is he hasn't got his paycheck yet and he hasn't any money on him but that doesn't stop one of the four from raising his fist and—

* * *

Nursing a split lip and swollen cheek, Feliciano trudges into the Braginsky tenement. Ivan's older sister pulls him aside quickly.

"What happened to you?" Her eyes are concerned, the way Lovino's would be after Feliciano came home with a black eye, and she maneuvers him to the narrow stairs to sit down.

"Nothing, Miss Braginskaya."

"Was not nothing. You are hurt."

Feliciano looks at the floor, glaring a little.

"Was it them?"

Nod.

She tells him to sit, hurries into her rooms, and bustles back quickly with a chip of ice wrapped in a dishcloth. "For your mouth."

"Thank you, Miss Braginskaya."

"Also for you. Dumplings."

They're hot and a little sticky and wrapped in the classifieds section of a tabloid newspaper and they smell of meat, and Feliciano grins thankfully even though it makes his face hurt.

Miss Braginskaya stands up again, laying a hand on his shoulder. "You are too skinny."

Feliciano just ducks his head again, mumbling his thanks, and climbs the stairs.

When he reaches the third floor, he sees the youngest new man again, just through the crack of the door, ink spattered on his shirtsleeves, and hears voices through the wall, and again for a second his eyes catch a strange warm glow at the corners.

He eats the dumplings for dinner along with a carrot and a little bread, and watches the stars through the small window, wrapped in the sounds of clanging ship bells and rumbling carriages and the once-every-half-hour screech of the train whistles as they come in from Oxhorn and Bremel, until he falls asleep wrapped in thin blankets with the faint images of stars behind cloud spread across his inner eyelids.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Feliciano decides to go pay the new men a visit. It'd be polite and besides he'll have to share a bathroom with them anyway so meeting them like this would be way better than meeting them because they broke the toilet or something.

He also brings plums from the shop as a sort of peace offering.

When the door opens, he squeaks involuntarily and backs away, nearly tripping on his own feet, because the man who opened the door is old, but he's also really tall and intimidating-looking and Feliciano could kick himself for the first words out of his mouth being "Hi I'm Feliciano I live on the next floor and we're gonna share a bathroom nice to meet you."

The old man raises an eyebrow at him. For some reason Feliciano notices he's got his hair in something approaching a bun, and then the old man nods once and extends his hand.

"Ewald Beilschmidt."

Almost sure he's heard that somewhere before, Feliciano takes his hand. It feels like paper, almost, and just a bit like his Nonno's, and it has very strong fingers.

"Do you want to come in for dinner?"

"O-oh, no, I couldn't—"

One of the other two men appears in the doorway—the older one, and Feliciano notices his eyes are nearly red—and half-shouts "Come in, you're too cute not to have dinner with!"

"You'll have to excuse Gilbert," Mr. Beilschmidt mutters, "he is often like that. Come in."

Feliciano does.

The Beilschmidts' rooms are larger than his own, although just as stuffy, and they smell of some kind of thick soup. The strange glow Feliciano caught before seems to hang in the corners where he doesn't look, and the window has no curtains on it yet.

There is also the third man standing at the tiny stove, stirring the soup. He turns his head towards Feliciano and nods quickly.

"That's Ludwig," Mr. Beilschmidt says quickly. "He's my youngest. Doesn't talk much."

Feliciano might have been seeing wrong, but he thinks Ludwig smiles at him for a fleeting second.

He hasn't eaten with anyone for at least a year and it's a very pleasant change, even though Gilbert is a little overbearing, and he learns that Gilbert works in the railway station near Coattail and Bottley Street and Ludwig works at the printer's up near the university and they moved to the Braginskys' place from somewhere up near the docks on the northwest end of Saint Stanislav and Ludwig can actually make pretty decent soup even if it is a little too warm and there's a bit of glow in Feliciano's eyes, just by the corners, if he looks at Gilbert sideways but that makes Gilbert grin at him in a kind of weird way so he stops.

Ewald, he says, works on Botany Way just by Oldbridge, which is kind of weird since that's where Feliciano's Nonno used to work, and—

—_oh._ Oh, _that's_ where he heard the name, Botany Way near Oldbridge is where the star-maker workshops are, and Nonno had worked at the Palatine workshop and mentioned some Beilschmidt once, and—

—"You're a _star-maker_?" Feliciano knows he must look rather stupid, to be so excited, but "Which workshop?"

"Theoderic's."

"I—oh. It's just, my grandfather used to work at Palatine and I thought you might have known him." Feliciano looks down at his hands, embarrassed.

"Hm." Ewald furrows his brow. "What was his name?"

"R-Romulus Vargas."

There is a clang—Gilbert dropped his spoon—and a faint gasp from Ludwig, and Ewald actually looks surprised for a second.

"Romulus Vargas?"

"Y-yes," quavers Feliciano—now Ewald's face is all scary and serious and what if he made him angry by talking about Nonno—"D-d-did you know him?"

"Not really. Romulus _Vargas_." Ewald leans back in his chair a little.

There isn't much conversation after that.

* * *

Gilbert shows up at the grocery store two days later, buys a pound and a quarter of asparagus, and does something that Feliciano thinks might be flirting, but he's not sure since he seems to do it indiscriminately, like Mr. Bonnefoy the pastry-maker down the street, except Gilbert doesn't seem to be very good at it.

It makes Mr. Carriedo laugh so hard his eyes crease up, though.

Feliciano meets Ludwig again that day, too, but not in the exact way he would've liked.

It's something in the air—a storm brewing up out east, ready to sweep down from Lord-under-Mountain and Kestrel's Well and out across the downs and plains, building speed—something heavy and nearly yellowing, making the air curl around the edges with moisture, the kind of air that brews fights.

Something that makes the men who follow him more vindictive when he has no money.

Feliciano curls up on the ground when they've left the narrow side-street, wincing at the sting in his ribs and his eyes—he will not cry, he will _not_—and trying to gather himself together enough to push upright.

He doesn't hear the footsteps, indistinguishable from the street noise, but then two battered work boots are in front of him and the voice connected to them says "Mr. Vargas?"

Feliciano looks up.

Ludwig stoops down. "A-are you—what happened?"

"I'll be fine," he mumbles. He's had worse, really, but only a few times, and he knows he'll ache horribly in the morning.

Ludwig offers him his hand. "I could help you get home. If you like."

Feliciano grabs at his hand—it's warm, and there are ink stains on it too, multicolored—and lets Ludwig pull him upright. He wobbles on his feet.

They both glance at their hands after two or so seconds and let go.

"Can you walk all right?"

"Think so." They hadn't really gone after his legs, but his ribs had taken a kicking, and he's really very grateful for the way Ludwig slings Feliciano's arm across his broad shoulders and walks slowly.

"Does this happen often?" Ludwig says, and when Feliciano looks over there's something tight in the set of his face and jaw.

He doesn't answer, which seems to be answer enough.

Before too long, they've reached the tenement, and Ludwig walks Feliciano up to his rooms.

"Are you going to be all right?" Ludwig is staring at the floor, which is a little weird.

"I—yeah. I think so."

"I-if you need anything—"

"Thanks." Feliciano smiles at him. "A-and you can call me Feliciano. Mr. Vargas was my grandfather."

"I—all right." Ludwig glances up, quickly, and there's another small smile. "I—uh. Goodbye."

He's outside the next morning when Feliciano leaves to go to work, and they walk together, and he's there again when Feliciano leaves the restaurant.

It's nice to have someone to talk to.

* * *

The storm does arrive a week later, and it's just as big as the air had foretold.

Feliciano and Ludwig sprint down Old Smithy—they won't be able to catch one of the full, wheezing trams and it would mean standing in the rain anyway—and hurry through the front door, gasping for breath.

Feliciano kind of has to shove Ludwig into his room, but "You got all wet on my account and we're not done talking you can sit down it's okay." He sits down on the narrow bed and undoes his boots, wrings out his socks. "You were telling me about the botany textbooks?"

"Um. Yes. Well." Ludwig clears his throat and begins to take his boots off. "I got a look at a few of them and the pictures were—amazing. The colors were difficult, though."

There's precious little fuel for the tiny stove, he hasn't been doing much cooking recently, but there's just enough so that Feliciano can drape their shirts in front of the stove and sit next to Ludwig, both in their undershirts. They keep talking, about the textbook pictures and the really nice woman Feliciano had run into doing deliveries and the time Gilbert had once almost taken a train to Burhstede by accident and how Ewald wants to see Feliciano, soon, Ludwig says.

That makes Feliciano's stomach jump a little.

It jumps more when Ludwig tentatively, so tentatively places an arm around Feliciano, but a good jump.

Ludwig's skin is very warm.


	3. Chapter 3

An excerpt from _Treatise on Star-Making_ by Dr. Marius Beeton

"The magical field of the earth has long been used as a source of raw energy, especially in locations such as chalk downs and certain mountain ranges that act as channels for magic storms, but nowhere has its use reached such a refinement as in the art of star-making…

…Magic, in its raw semi-solidified form, is drawn over a frame with specialized equipment, varying from workshop to workshop, in a form suited to the type of wish the star is intended to grant; thus a star intended to grant the wishes of a soldier has a more militaristic, combative aspect to it than a star intended to grant the wishes of a child…

…This profession arose in roughly the year 1563 in the mountains around Kestrel's Well, Braxton, and Lord-under-Mountain, but swiftly moved to Saint Stanislav, as the workshop system grew beyond the means of said towns, and centered in a port area of the city. The star-makers began separating into workshops, similar to guilds, almost immediately, and inter-workshop trade of techniques or material were near nonexistent…

…At the time of this publication, the most powerful workshops are Saqqara and Melammu Ummani."

* * *

Excerpt from the _Saint Stanislav Herald_, 18th of the 11th month, 1682:

"Romulus "Roma" Vargas, aged 74, died the 16th of this month at his home in Dancer Street of complications from an infection of the lungs.

He was born in Saint Stanislav in 1608, 5th of the 4th month, to Marce and Atilia Vargas, grew up in Saint Stanislav, and founded the Palatine star-making workshop at age 23. Married to Thiphilia Cilnia, he had one daughter, Renata. She passed, leaving him three grandsons, of which Romulus is survived by two, Feliciano and Carlino, respectively in Saint Stanislav and Housemartin.

After his passing, the Palatine workshop will be closed permanently."

* * *

"Soon," Ludwig had said Ewald had said, and that had apparently meant the next morning.

Feliciano was woken up early by the hammering of the rain on the fire escapes, and now he knocks on the door of the first set of rooms on the right, shifting awkwardly as he waits.

He does not have to wait long. Ewald opens the door, stern-faced, and gestures to him to sit at the tiny dinner table.

"So," he says. "Romulus Vargas's grandson."

"Y-yes."

"How much—" Ewald is still stony-faced, but Feliciano catches the minute hesitation. "How much did your grandfather teach you before he died?"

"I—well—he taught me the general theory about star-making, but I never got to do much application." Feliciano has a feeling where this is going, but he hasn't ever heard of workshops hiring someone from another one, it's just something that doesn't happen, and why him anyway?

_Why not the grandson of Romulus Vargas?_ some part of him says, some part he hears on clear nights when the stars—his grandfather's—shine over Sifter Street and Österlie's lighthouse in the bay, _why not the grandson of the head of Palatine, why not the grandson of the greatest star-maker Saint Stanislav has ever known—_

_Because Palatine closed,_ the rest of him says. _Palatine closed and Nonno worked himself to death and you don't know enough._

He could, though. Feliciano still hears bits and pieces about the workshops, from the men who follow him (some of them worked at Palatine, and he should have carried on, they say, with no real practical experience, with debt and the other workshops rising, it's his fault they lost that job), and Theoderic's is growing. Good chances, good production.

He could.

Feliciano could see his stars up there with Nonno's, with Ewald's and Helena's and Eudokia's, he _could_—

"I'll—I'll learn. If you'll teach me, I'll learn, I'll get better," he says, breathless, because he will—

—Ewald holds up his hand. "Let me finish. Gunderic, one of our apprentices, just left. If you are willing, I could persuade Theoderic to let me take you on in his stead."

Feliciano nods as quickly as possible, nearly shaking in his seat, and then he really can't stay there anymore and he jumps out of the chair to hug Ewald, who seems very startled by this.

"Thank you," he almost squeaks, clinging to the stern-faced man. Ewald pats him on the back stiffly.

"It may be difficult," Ewald says as Feliciano prepares himself to brave the rain outside. "You are Romulus Vargas's grandson."

He must catch the look on Feliciano's face, because then he adds "But, after all, you are Romulus's grandson."

* * *

It takes a week and a half.

A week and a half, and then Ludwig knocks on Feliciano's door.

"I—Grandfather told me to tell you, he's still working so he can't come right now but, uh—he said you'll start Monday. At the workshop." Ludwig is staring at his shoes, which is really kind of weird, but Feliciano really doesn't have time to concentrate on that because _he starts Monday_ and he lunges forward and hugs Ludwig as hard as he possibly can, which makes Ludwig jump a little.

Feliciano doesn't say much for the longest time, there really isn't much to say, and when he detaches himself from Ludwig his cheeks hurt and Ludwig is standing still and stiff as a board, face red.

"Thank you," Feliciano says. "Thank you thank you—your grandfather—I—" He can't make sense of the thousand million things rushing through his head, they're all spilling over each other to get out of his mouth, and the one that beats all the others to the punch is "Do you and Gilbert and your grandfather want to come over for dinner? I'm sorry I really don't know how to thank you—"

"I—I think so. Yes. I'll ask." Ludwig coughs a little. "Um. Why—why are you thanking me? I didn't do—"

"Well, you told me, didn't you?" Feliciano chirps, still beaming. "That's something. Come in, if I'm having your family over for dinner I'll have to start cooking now, oh I hope noodles are okay I haven't much else right now—do you think they'll be okay?"

"I think they'd be wonderful." Feliciano laughs a little at that, and a little at the way Ludwig looks like he's said something he didn't mean to.

"Ludwig? Could you be really really nice and go fill this pot? The pump's at the other end of the hall."

Dinner is noodles and peas, and there's not enough room around the table but all four manage to fit.

* * *

The summer trails on towards its panting, humid close, and Feliciano takes the tram to work when he can because Ewald might be tall and carry himself well but he is old, and Ludwig goes with them.

One day, Gilbert just…isn't there.

Feliciano asks Ewald, but he gets this look in his eyes that reminds Feliciano of when Nonno got the letter about Lovino, and when he asks Ludwig Ludwig just tenses up.

He stops asking out loud, but it's so strange not having loud voices filter up through the floorboards, not having raucous laughs that make Ludwig flush and Ewald grumble, and the table is still small but it feels a little too big without Gilbert there.

* * *

It's late late late and Ewald and Feliciano are still working when he finally learns.

The workshop is empty except for the two, and they're still working on a star, Feliciano shaping the face with a stylus.

"I think that's enough," Ewald tells him. "You've an eye for details."

"Thanks." Feliciano steps off the stepstool he's been given—this is some sort of extended-family business as far as he can tell and they're all _tall_ so all the equipment is just a little too high up for him. "Um. If you don't mind my asking…?"

"Go ahead."

"Why don't Ludwig and G—why doesn't Ludwig work here? I m-mean, it's kind of traditional, that's what Nonno told me at least, you follow your family and—"

"Because…" Ewald sighs. "Because it wouldn't be…right. Especially not with Gi—it wouldn't be right, and he doesn't want to."

Lovino had always told Feliciano he had a habit of picking up on the parts of sentences people really _really_ didn't want him to pick up on and he can't help it and he wants to kick himself when "What happened with Gilbert?" is the first thing out of his mouth.

Ewald's face nearly goes thunderous for a moment, and then his shoulders slump just the tiniest bit.

"I told you they were my grandsons," he says quietly. "They're…not."

He sits down on a workbench, gesturing for Feliciano to sit next to him, and begins to explain.

How he'd never really had much of a family, and then what family he'd had had died or moved away. How he'd realized how old he was becoming, as his hair whitened each day and he'd come home every day to a small set of rooms that were always, always dark.

How one night he'd wished, silently, on the late tram from Botany Way to Antler Street, that he had a family, someone to talk to away from the workshop, and then the next night he'd been working late (again, he always did) and in the corner of his part of the workshop there'd been two stars he was working on, nearly completed, and then there had been a moment of—not silence, not the absence of sound, but the opposite of sound, deafening—and then—

—one of the stars had, quite gracefully, fallen forward off of its stand and landed face-first on the floor.

It had stood, shaking off the casing layer of magic (which had clattered on the floor like pottery except for the flashes of yellow-green light), and become a boy, about twelve years old by the looks of it.

Not a moment later, the other one followed suit.

Ewald had taken them home, because what else was there to do, and they _spoke_ and left faint trails of the casing-layer dust through the slushy streets and stared at the dingy buildings through the tram windows with something approaching awe.

Feliciano stares at Ewald through this whole story—he can't help it.

They were still stars, though, the two, for all they grew older, and Gilbert had been older and he'd had to—go. Up.

Where the rest of the stars went.

"Do you know," Ewald mumbles at the end, "I think the star that enabled this was one of your grandfather's. He always did specialize in familial wishes."

Feliciano hasn't much to say after that. The questions buzz in his brain but he knows none of them have answers and—

_the little glow in the corners of the Beilschmidt rooms the odd warmth of Ludwig's skin the half-hidden hurt in his eyes when Feliciano asked about Gilbert_

—the thing that comes out first is "It m-must have been a r-really good star, to do that."

"It was," Ewald says softly. "It was."


	4. Chapter 4

Feliciano notices that his rooms, just in the corners, have little flecks of light like the gold on the altarpieces in the churches and in the folds of the icons' robes, flashing almost out of his sight. It must be casing-dust, tracked in on his shoes and the seams of his jacket.

His fingers are no longer scrubbed red-raw from soap, but instead are beginning to develop small calluses on the fingers, faint flashes at the end of the day sparking off from his fingers, and he remembers how after working nights Nonno's hands would seem almost to glow.

And he's made more friends, with Adelheid who works in a millinery store but visits after hours to check on Basch (who Feliciano isn't quite friends with because he's _scary_) and with Anneliese and Erzsébet and Dieuwer even though they look at him funny sometimes.

The workshop has folded around him, let him in, and it's probably partly because Ewald's been working here for so long that nobody really questions his judgment and partly because since Palatine is closed they're not worried he'll run off and start his own workshop with what they taught him. Ewald's let him off of full-time training, too, so he can just come in during normal work hours.

The workshop has let him in, and there actually is a problem with that.

The men who follow him.

They haven't tried anything yet, because he walks home with Ludwig and Ludwig is very mild and tries not to be scary but he's big, but they might because around half of them used to work for Palatine.

He knows the things they say about him, about how he should have at least tried to keep them in their jobs instead of letting the workshop close, about how he's a coward and a lot worse for joining Theoderic's, and they're honestly the same ones who used to chase him home from grammar school and make Lovino threaten to headbutt them, and—

—and Feliciano is _tired_ of that.

So one day while he and Ludwig are walking along Froster Avenue, just as they pass the pawn shop, Feliciano says "Do you know anything about fighting?"

"Basch and Gi—Gilbert—"—he can say it now, two months later, and Feliciano wants to hold his hand when he sees the momentary flicker on Ludwig's face—"—taught me a little," Ludwig answers. "Why?"

"I was wondering if you could teach me any?"

Ludwig nods. "I could, probably."

* * *

It's a little easier to see the stars in fall, sometimes, the air sharpens up but the factories still run.

But now when Feliciano stares out the window, it's not _someday_. It's _soon_.

* * *

Ludwig is actually very good at giving fighting lessons, which he does whenever there's spare time after work, clearing a little space in the middle of Feliciano's rooms and showing him how to land and block punches.

After, they eat dinner with Ewald around the still-too-big table, and it's almost…family.

Feliciano's had no family but letters for two years, and the change is strangely unstartling until it's already happened.

One day there aren't lessons, though, instead Ludwig had said to please come to the presses after work, and Feliciano hangs around outside and listens to the thud-thud-thud of the presses shaking the street, watching the university tram clank up the street and his breath curling in the air. Ludwig hurries out after a few minutes, holding a package under one arm, and smiles at him. There's ink on his hands, just plain black this time.

"I thought we might be able to go to Speaker's Park?" He says in a rush, not really meeting Feliciano's eyes. "A-and pick up something to eat on the way back?"

Feliciano grins and nods, sliding an arm through Ludwig's.

They trot down Kingsmarch towards Speaker's Park, and make small talk about the run of pamphlets that Ludwig and Yao just finished and the story Erzsébet told Feliciano about the time she and Anneliese had traveled from Snow's Rock all the way down the coast to Saint Dobry, and they sit on the slightly damp grass behind a copse of faintly anemic birches in the park and Feliciano leans on Ludwig's shoulder.

"What's in the package?"

He can almost feel Ludwig's face flush suddenly, warm skin going hot and red, and Ludwig mutters "It's for you," handing it to Feliciano.

"It" turns out to be a scarf, dark blue and kind of lumpy, and a book—_oh_, the book—

The book is a book of reproductions of famous artworks, and it's all in color, and Feliciano stares at it in silence for a good few seconds before flinging his arms around Ludwig, trying not to hit him in the back of the head with the book, and hugging him _so hard_ before he does a few hasty internal calculations and a wave of guilt washes over him because this book—on a printer's wages—

—"I'd b-been saving up for it," Ludwig mumbles. "For a while. And I made the scarf for you too, because you look cold a lot of the time."

Feliciano is still staring at the book, and he leafs through a few pages and realizes the smile on his face is absolutely _huge_, and then—and then Ludwig clears his throat a little and slowly, a little shakily, wraps the scarf loosely around Feliciano's neck.

Remembering his manners just in time, Feliciano squeaks "Thank you!" and gives Ludwig another hug, relaxing into his warmth. "I should get you something too, it's only fair…"

"It's fine," Ludwig says quickly.

When Feliciano pulls back Ludwig's face has gone completely red and he can't help but laugh; and when eventually they get up to buy food from a pushcart (it's a little greasy and a little suspect but it's warm and cheap and really the first two are unavoidable and it's not _bad_) Feliciano tucks the book under his jacket to keep it safe from the autumn mud.

* * *

Feliciano's not sure if Ewald would like this.

Ludwig is a star, after all, and Ewald had said not even the others at the workshop knew, and he's already lost Gilbert so he'd want to keep Ludwig close, and Feliciano _doesn't know how to ask_.

He turns to Ewald one day in the workshop as he climbs off his stepstool and says "So. U-um. M-me and Ludwig—"

"You and Ludwig," Ewald replies, and it sounds a bit like acceptance.

They leave it at that.

* * *

Ludwig and Feliciano go for walks at night, sometimes, and the nights are closing in, and in them Ludwig almost glows, faintly, like a streetlamp a long way off through dense fog. They're mostly for talking, these walks, and they never go much of anywhere in particular, and other times they just sit on the fire escape of the tenement and listen to the night sounds of Saint Stanislav and stare at the stars.

This night, they went for a walk, and Feliciano has pulled the blue scarf almost up to his nose, and Ludwig has pulled his hat down over his ears, and then they hear voices outside a bar and there's a light.

It's a strange thing, what they see, some sort of thing like the little machines they have sometimes at carnivals where for ten cents you put your eyes up to a little box and turned a crank and there would be a little picture of a man riding a horse or throwing a hat that would move when you did that, but this isn't the same, it's a woman turning the crank on a box and then there're pictures on a sheet tacked to the wall of the bar.

They move.

Feliciano hurries over, Ludwig hot on his heels, and there's already a little crowd of people watching.

"What _is_ that?" Ludwig murmurs next to him, and Feliciano shrugs.

The woman, short with her hair held back with a ribbon, hands him a flyer.

"_Lotte Marchal van de Velde's Image Projector: UNLIKE ANYTHING YOU HAVE SEEN BEFORE_." Feliciano reads. "_Exciting Adaptations of Plays and Novellas in COMPLETE MOTION. 638 Leveller Street off of Basket._"

Ludwig whistles lowly. On the sheet, a boy steps on a gardener's hose and cuts off the water.

"That's…wow!" Feliciano's not entirely paying attention to the action on the screen, but "How do they _do_ that?"

"It's a lot of small pictures going fast?"

"You'd have to draw them all in, and it'd take forever—is it photographs?" Feliciano turns to the woman, who straightens up from the box.

"Yeah. You take a lot of photographs, really small, and then you glue them all together _don't touch them _the film's unstable. New compound." She grins, almost catlike, and turns to the gathering crowd. "I've got more, anyone want to see another?"

Then she puts another roll of the little tiny pictures into the box and starts turning the crank again, and Ludwig and Feliciano stand in the crowd, breaths fogging, and watch.

When Ludwig and Feliciano return to Old Smithy, they go up the fire escape so as not to bother the Braginskys, and outside the door to Ludwig's and Ewald's rooms—Ludwig opens his mouth, closes it, takes a deep breath, and kisses Feliciano so quickly he's not really sure if it happened.

"I," Ludwig stammers, and "uh," and then finally "good night."

Feliciano catches his hand before he can rush inside, and smiles gently, and kisses him on each cheek.

* * *

And the days get even shorter, and the stars shine clear-cold through the fog and snow and smoke, and then.

Feliciano has to remember again what it is stars do.

They go up.

He's known, of course he's known, how could he not have known, but he's made himself not remember because to remember would be to accept that his first real friend, the man who taught him how to fight, the man who smiles at him and always talks to him, has to _go_.

And he has to remember this because Ewald starts seeing the signs first, and his face becomes drawn and weary and his hair is all white, and then because one night there's a knocking on the fire escape door.

It's Ludwig.

Oh, _no_—

"In the morning," Ludwig says, throat catching on something. "I've got to—go."

And he does, the faint glow isn't so faint anymore and the snow-acid smell of magic hangs about him, and Feliciano pulls him inside and hugs him close.

"I don't _want_ to," Ludwig half-whispers. "I don't want to leave—"

"I know," Feliciano murmurs back, holding down the tears. "I know. B-but you'll—you can see Gilbert—"

"Can't," Ludwig replies, voice heavy. "He's—two weeks ago, there was—he's been wished on—" And the tears spill over, and Feliciano can't do anything but shush him and try not to yell that it isn't _fair_.

Half an hour before dawn, Ludwig has to go back downstairs to talk to Ewald.

Feliciano kisses him before he leaves, and says in a voice so close to breaking, "I'll—I'll watch for you, all right?"

That night, the stars have never seemed so far away.


	5. Chapter 5

And life moves on, in a way.

In a way.

Feliciano still talks to Anneliese and Erzsébet and Adelheid, but he really misses Ludwig a lot (they told the rest of the workshop that he'd had to move out to Copperbell on the downs on short notice to work for their newspaper), and oh, Ewald—

—Ewald looks so old and so tired, all the time, and Feliciano has taken to staying long nights at the workshop because otherwise Ewald might not even go home at all, and he stays until Feliciano comes to him and tells him—low voice, always a low voice in the nearly empty workshop, raising his voice seems wrong somehow—that the late tram is almost there, he can work more on the star tomorrow.

The star. Ewald is working on one, solo project, and when he speaks to Feliciano (he does that less, now, he's not really talking much anymore) he won't let Feliciano work on it either even though Feliciano can tell his eyes aren't what they used to be.

I have to make it, he says. Myself.

Ewald does finish the star, in the end.

* * *

Excerpt from the _Saint Stanislav Herald_, 6th of the 1st month, 1685:

"Ewald Beilschmidt, aged 79, died in his home on Lucy Street off of Old Smithy on the 3rd of this month from old age.

He was born in Snow's Rock in 1605, 2nd of the 8th month, to Odoacer and Luetgard Beilschmidt and moved to Saint Stanislav in 1636, becoming a member of Theoderic Beike's star-making workshop. He never married or had children, but adopted two grandsons, Gilbert and Ludwig Beilschmidt (now living in Ivyton and Copperbell, respectively), neither of whom could be reached by the _Herald_ at the time of publication.

His passing will be mourned by the remaining members of Theoderic's workshop."

* * *

The funeral is quiet and small, at the little chapel off of Chiswell, and it's all people from the workshop. Basch gives the eulogy, and everyone files past the coffin (wrong, Ewald looks _wrong_ like that, too small, too cold) and then follows it out to the churchyard.

Everyone stands around afterwards at the patch of brown earth surrounded by off-white snow, quiet. Adelheid is sniffling, and Erzsébet's and Anneliese's faces look drawn, and Dieuwer just stares at the ground, and—and Feliciano feels _awful_ because he's _not crying_, he can't, the grief is there but it won't come.

"We should—" Basch mutters eventually. "We should send up the star. It's what he'd have wanted."

And so they quietly make their way through the slush to catch a tram—half-empty at this time of day—and as they sit and the bumps in the road jostle them and the cold air comes in through the chinks in the sides, Feliciano still can't cry.

The star goes up quite quickly, and when Feliciano gets back home he sits by his window for hours watching for it—should be between Thunderer Gate and Wixon Street, so it'll be a little hard to see out of the window, a little far south—and when it shows up, that is when he buries his face in the itchy wool blanket and cries.

* * *

The men who follow him have come back, now that Ludwig is gone, now that Feliciano walks everywhere slowly.

_Where's your pet?_ They ask him sometimes, yell across the street. _Where's your pet, shop traitor?_

Finally, one day, they try to go after him again.

And Feliciano is _sick_ of being the one they go after, and he picks up his pace as well as he can through the slush, and then the man in front grabs him by the shoulder and hauls him backwards, and—

—and Feliciano remembers Ludwig telling him about this, and he stamps down on the man's foot with the heel of his half-soaked boots as hard as he can and pulls forward, elbowing him in the gut, and breaks into a run.

He doesn't get far, and it's still four against one, but Feliciano is still _so damn sick_ of them, and he wants to hit someone and they're the closest and it takes the greengrocer by Sooty Bridge to break them up.

Katyusha nearly panics when she sees Feliciano that night, sees the bruises and the limp, and she fusses over him and gives him tea out of a samovar, and Anneliese looks at him worriedly the next day at the workshop.

But—but the four don't go after him anymore after that. Maybe it's not worth getting bit and kicked.

* * *

Things get better. Maybe. Feliciano sees posters on walls advertising "_Lotte Marchal van de Velde's NEW IMAGE THEATER_" and Adelheid says they're great but if he thinks about them he remembers breath fogging in the air and _how does that work_ and a warm, if lumpy, scarf and then he sighs and says "Maybe I'll go some other time."

And he passes the door on the floor below him (now someone else lives there, Mikkel his name is) and sees the stars at night and it feels like a weight all along his shoulders.

And sometimes, in his rooms, eating small meals alone at the small but too-large table, he just _misses_ everything—Ewald and Ludwig and Gilbert and Carlino and Lovino and Nonno—so much he doesn't even finish dinner.

* * *

"You're getting skinny," Katyusha tells him.

"Your work's getting slower," Dieuwer tells him.

"The rent's due in a week," Braginsky tells him.

"I know," Feliciano tells them.

* * *

And then, sometime in the late winter when the snow is a dirty layer on the rooftops, Feliciano sits up all night staring at the stars.

He runs his hand along the edge of the faded red curtain, watches, through the gathering clouds, a star—probably Capet workshop—and another—not sure whose, off north over Shandy Gate—a third and a fourth and a fifth—and at some point, he's not sure when, he just—

—_please I don't want to be alone anymore_—

—and he rests his head on his knees.

There's a smell, cold and sharp for a second.

Sound—

—_stops_

* * *

When sound returns, it brings a sharp _bang_ with it, as of something landing heavily on the fire escape. Feliciano hurries out, uncaring of the cold metal on his bare feet, and sees someone still glowing faintly, curled up clutching their head. They unfold a little, looking around confusedly, and then light blue eyes meet Feliciano's and there's a flash of recognition in them and Feliciano clumsily kneels down and pulls Ludwig into a hug, shaking—the tears spill over, this time, quietly—and he can't think of anything to say.

Ludwig clutches at him, face pressed to the side of Feliciano's head, and Feliciano holds him and the familiar warmth close.

* * *

They stay the rest of the night talking, Ludwig saw Ewald go but he still asks Feliciano about it anyway.

"Do you know—" Ludwig mumbles, around six in the morning. "Do you know, I think it might have been one of Grandfather's stars that—that did this."

Feliciano buries his face in Ludwig's neck.

They visit Ewald's grave a day later, Feliciano leaving crocuses and Ludwig leaving a small necklace, and Ludwig cries a little afterwards.

Feliciano knows Ludwig didn't hear it, but as he had knelt down to lay the crocuses he'd said "_Thank you so, so much. F-for everything._".

And meant it.

* * *

On Lucy Street just off Old Smithy in Saint Stanislav, near to the slow river that ices around the edges in the winter and floods in the late spring and smells in the summer and fall, there is a tenement. The rain gutters and fire escapes have left streaks of rust down the walls, and floods from years long past have left watermarks on the ground floor, and a sign in the window in careful lettering reads "ROOMS TO RENT- ask for Braginsky". On the top story, four up from the peeling door, there is a tiny window, cleaner than most, with new red calico curtains done half in large, careful stitches and half in small, slightly crooked ones.

In this garret room, there is a bed that is probably too narrow, and a table that is probably too small, and a well-used stove and a very full bookshelf, and on the nightstand there are pictures, dug up, perhaps, from a small box somewhere: one of an old man with flyaway hair, grinning widely, arms around three boys, one scowling halfheartedly in a brand-new uniform, one beaming so hard the corners of his eyes are lost to his cheeks, and one caught mid-fidget; and one of an old man with long hair in a bun and two boys, one grinning with bared teeth and the other ducking his head. There are two ticket stubs from _Journey to Space_, and there is a faint glow to the corners of the rooms.

The occupants of the garret room with this window are Ludwig Beilschmidt and Feliciano Vargas. Feliciano Vargas once had a family, and he had lost them, and then he had had another family for a very short time, and he had lost them too. Now he has Ludwig, and he has Anneliese and Erzsébet, and he has Adelheid and Basch and Dieuwer and Heinrich, and sometimes he has Alfred. Feliciano has Ludwig, and Feliciano works at Theoderic Beike's star-making workshop and Ludwig works at Timothy Hendriks and Kiku Honda's printing press, and neither of them are alone, and some nights they spend sitting on the too-narrow bed by the window and looking at the stars.

* * *

Names of the workshops: Palatine Hill is the spot where Rome was founded, Theoderic was a famous king of the Ostrogoths, Melammu Ummani is reconstructed Sumerian that hopefully means "radiant workers", Saqqara is the necropolis outside of Memphis in Egypt, Capet was the name of the first post-Charlemagne French dynasty. Marce, Atilia, and Thiphilnia are all Etruscan (the pre-Roman/Latin culture in Italy) names, and Renata is Renaissance Italy. Her husband may be the Vatican, but then again, he may not. Odoacer and Luetgard are ancient Germanic names. Also the setting for this AU has been in my head for years and it's quite nice to get to use it.


End file.
